Contact us

Life, work, love and loss.

Making the hard decisions lighter.

For Medical Referrers

Rafan House offers compassionate, professional and discreet therapeutic interventions to patients with a range of mental health difficulties. We also work with individuals, couples and families who are facing the ordinary, but nonetheless traumatic difficulties that can arise in both personal and work circumstances. As a team practice, we are mindful of the balance between the need for ongoing work with patients who truly benefit from continuity and the need to help patients move on with their lives. If you would like to see what your patients see when they come to our website, please click here. Our services include:

Counselling is a professional helping hand; providing assistance and guidance during difficult times and through difficult emotions. It offers the time, space, and privacy to explore feelings of depression, anxiety, distress, and grief. Counsellors are a listening ear but also an interpretor for one's emotional state; allowing may feel like a flurry of emotions to be translated into something more understandable and manageable.

Psychotherapy is a talking therapy; the therapist provides one-to-one conversations, allowing the exploration of one's feelings and behaviour in depth, and the cause/s behind these emotions, thoughts, and behaviours. Ultimately, the aim is to find a solution to emotional distress, allowing one to move forward, and deal with any similar patterns in relationships that may arise in the future. Psychotherapy can be used to help resolve a wide range of everyday struggles that arise for all of us from time to time, as well as mental health conditions.
Rafan House also has specialist associates in music, art, and other therapies.

Couples therapy provides the time, space, and privacy for couples to explore difficulties in their relationship and to offer solutions to other concerns that are putting a strain on the relationship. The therapist speaks to the couple together to hear about the problems that have arisen, explore the causes of the problems and the impact they are having, and suggest ways to bring about change. The pattern of relationships from throughout life and with a therapist can be an important part of understanding a couple relationship and are identified and examined as part of the therapy.

Mediation provides the privacy, space, and time for couples, partners, family members, and co-workers to process difficult situations and emotions. Mediation works with the view to improve communication, resolve conflicts, and bring about resolution and agreement. It provides the opportunity to bring different voices to conversations about personal and business relationship breakdowns with absolute confidentiality and without judgement.

There is growing awareness of the extent of the problem of post-natal depression, estimated to affect up to 15 % of mothers. Left unchecked, consequences for mothers can be far-reaching.
There is mounting neurobiological evidence of the impact of post-natal depression and disturbances in attachment on the emotional development of the infant and what this can mean for mental health in later life.
Maternal emotional difficulties in the peri-natal period can have a significant impact on the emotional development and secure attachment of the infant to mother. An emotionally unavailable mother, whether as a result of post-natal depression; what is evoked from the mother's past when a baby is born; or difficulties in a mother's current situation, can inhibit the healthy emotional development of the infant. Prolonged experiences of this kind may impact on future mental health.
For these reasons, we at Rafan House place great emphasis on the earliest psychotherapeutic interventions which can create profound and lasting change.
Consultations include mother together with her infant (0-6 months) and the opportunity for father to attend consultations is also available and encouraged.

Psycho-sexual therapy is available to both individuals and couples to treat the causes as well as the symptoms of sexual problems being experienced. Whether the issues are physical or emotional, specialist therapists can offer counselling for the emotional fallout of breakdowns in sexual relationships, trouble with arousal, orgasm, or ejaculation, and loss of sexual appetite. Psycho-sexual therapy can help with a lack of knowledge or an excess of sexual behaviours, regardless of which is limiting one's way of life.

Mindfulness is a therapeutic technique that focuses on the present. By increasing awareness and acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and sensations, the therapy promotes calmness, and teaches users to avoid negative automatic thoughts and behaviours. Mindfulness is particularly beneficial in today's stressful and fast-paced world as it is designed to fit into busy schedules whilst also encouraging you to pause and ground yourself regularly, preventing one becoming overwhelmed. Group mindfulness can be especially stabilising for those suffering mental illness and is particularly useful in the treatment of depression and anxiety.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, is a comprehensive talking therapy that focuses on how thought processes, behaviour, and emotions influence one another. This allows the examination of how emotional wellbeing can improve through changes to negative thought patterns and unhealthy behaviours. CBT is recommended for depression and anxiety and can also contribute to treatment of disorders like bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorder. The skills and tools provided by challenging thoughts and altering behaviours can also be put to use in managing stress and promoting emotional well-being.

Mentoring is a form of relationship-based communication and support which aims to advise and guide, be it through a situation or decision of great difficulty, or as a form of long-term assistance. Mentoring can be useful to all aspects of life, and can discreetly help to develop one's potential and improve confidence.

Education consultancy provides a sensitive listening ear and experienced advice to help parents and families reach clarity when making the difficult decisions or handling the issues that can arise throughout the educational life of their child from before birth to the award of a graduate degree. Educational decisions are naturally fraught as so much can ride on what action is taken or not taken. This opportunity to explore options is hugely valuable for all involved.

Life-coaching can provide the support and advice to help identify and fulfil one's aspirations for achievement in life, be they work-related or in more personal matters.

Through our in-house and wider range of hand-picked associates, we can meet the complex needs of our patients as these become clearer and develop over time. For example, a patient originally referred for stress at work may in due course reveal personal financial worries or relationship breakdown. We can source the necessary specialists and guide the patient as they move through the different stages of their journey and engage with other professionals.

“I’ve had a longstanding interest in psychotherapy models of practice and what may be of benefit for both colleagues and patients, but have seldom heard such a clear and accessible explanation of how unconscious processes laid down in early life can impact on future relationships – both inter-personal and professional” – Dr Marta Buszewicz